D&D General Take A Look At The Class Boards From The New D&D Starter Set

Check out the cleric's 'dashboard'.
Heroes of the Borderlands, which is Dungeons & Dragons' upcoming new starter set, is one of the largest starter sets the game has ever produced--not least in part to the card-based character creation pops. One essential part of that card-based process is the class board--as D&D Beyond puts it, "a dashboard that clearly lays out everything you need to play, from your Armor Class to your spells and features, with card slots and token trackers that keep the game moving fast".

class-board.jpg

There's a board for each class in the boxed set (the example above is the cleric). In the bottom left you can see a 'What You Need To Play' section which lists the additional cards you need to play a cleric--in this case, two equipment cards, 7 spell cards, and a bunch of gold pieces.

The card itself includes your basic stats--ability scores, saving throws, skills, hit points, speed, and so on. There are also clearly marked spots where you can place cards for your armor, your spells, and other things. There's also a space over on the far right for species and origin cards.

Once you reach level 2, you flip the card cover. That automatically increases your hit points and other features.

cleric-level-2.jpg

Finally, at level 3, you choose your subclass and you swap your class board for a more specialised one. The included cleric includes boards for the Life and Light domains. The new board not only updates your stats (like when you leveleled up to level 2) it also adds in the subclass features.

cleric-board-3.jpg

Heroes of the Borderlands comes out September 16th for $49.99.

 

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You and WotC both, I would imagine. This may be their way of testing the waters.

Personally, I don't like it. Too fiddly, too many things to lose. But I mostly play online anyway.
WotC has been repeatedly experimenting with more at-the-table elements for a while now. Remember the big boxed sets of Colorform-style tokens to go on battlemats?

I don't think they're under any illusion -- or desire -- to have everyone playing the exact same way. More that they want to make sure they've got a product for every type of customer, whether online or tabletop or (probably the biggest segment nowadays) the people who are a mix of both.
 
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I don't think they're under any illusion -- or desire -- to have everyone playing the exact same way.
Oh, I bet if they could get every player to buy a mat, cards, etc. for every character, WotC would be in absolute heaven. Getting players (as opposed to GMs) to spend more money on the game has been their holy grail for decades. The question is whether they have realized that getting everyone to use the mats isn't actually likely to happen.
 

Oh, I bet if they could get every player to buy a mat, cards, etc. for every character, WotC would be in absolute heaven. Getting players (as opposed to GMs) to spend more money on the game has been their holy grail for decades. The question is whether they have realized that getting everyone to use the mats isn't actually likely to happen.
That’s a weird criticism of an opinion that you gave them.
 

That’s a weird criticism of an opinion that you gave them.
Mostly, I was just responding to the previous poster's suggestion that WotC didn't desire to make everyone use mats. Why wouldn't they desire it, when it would mean more money for them and solve what they have admitted is one of their biggest dilemmas?

I think they probably know it's not going to happen--at least, the people at with boots on the ground do. But is it really so unrealistic to suspect that the higher-ups may be hoping for these things to catch on? (At least they're not aggressively pushing them, so far anyway.)
 
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I think they probably know it's not going to happen--at least, the people at with boots on the ground do. But is it really so unrealistic to suspect that the higher-ups may be hoping for these things to catch on? (At least they're not aggressively pushing them, so far anyway.)
Yeah it is kind of unrealistic. It’s a cool little thing but not one easy to expand on.

Especially given that most higher ups as you call them probably haven’t paid any attention to the contents of the box in that regard


That's because it was too soon. Most players have their character sheet on their phone these days, even without Hasbro pushing it.

Pencil and paper character sheets are going to die, but it sure aint cards that will replace them!
Not because it was too soon, it’s because it didn’t happen period.
 

It still doesn't sound farfetched to me, but I'll accept I'm in the minority. It's all speculation anyway, since we obviously have no way of knowing what their hopes or plans are.
 

It still doesn't sound farfetched to me, but I'll accept I'm in the minority. It's all speculation anyway, since we obviously have no way of knowing what their hopes or plans are.
No, but if you simply look at the boards and how they work it’s obvious they cannot be extended to higher levels or all classes. You could have designed a much more complicated card based system that is extensible, the fact that they didn’t tells you about their plans.

It’s amazing what you can learn through observation and deduction.
 

Oh, I bet if they could get every player to buy a mat, cards, etc. for every character, WotC would be in absolute heaven. Getting players (as opposed to GMs) to spend more money on the game has been their holy grail for decades. The question is whether they have realized that getting everyone to use the mats isn't actually likely to happen.
I feel like if this was the idea they would have designed 5e24 with boards as the core concept. The starter set is just a tool to on board new players.
 


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